Galluccio Takes Walsh's Seat on City Council

Council Considers Stores, Diversity

Last night, in the final Cambridge City Council meeting of the year, Anthony D. Galluccio was sworn in as the newest city councillor.

The 27-year-old legislative side, a native Cantabrigian, on Saturday won a recount to succeed convicted felon William H. Walsh's seat on the nine-member council.

But a less harmonious discussion followed the ceremony, as councillors criticized the lack of a supermarket in two city neighborhoods and questioned City Manager Robert W. Healy after the public release of a report showing minorities are vastly underrepresented in the city administration.

The special recount took place on Friday, following Walsh's sentencing last month on 41 charges of bank fraud and conspiracy and his removal from office as mandated by Massachusetts.

Galluccio, his mother and his sister were escorted into the council chamber in the 6 p.m. ceremony. He was sworn in by City Clerk D. Margaret Drury.

"To me, the communities of Cambridge--that's what spurred me to go into politics," Galluccio said in his speech following the ceremony.

"It's about generations of people who support each other in times of need," said Galluccio, the son of an Italian immigrant and Harvard graduate. "Now I have an opportunity to give back to it."

Galluccio is a legislative side to state Sen. Robert D. Wetmore (D-Barre) and a night student at Suffolk university Law School.

Stop-and-Shop

A report issued yesterday by Susan B. Schlesinger, the acting city manager for community development, outlined options the city can take to have a supermarket built in Cambridge-port and Riverside.

In August the council denied the Stop-and-Shop chain a zoning permit to build a large branch on Memorial Drive.

Councillor Timothy J. Toomey Jr., who voted against Stop-and-Shop, said the proposed store's size would have impaired traffic conditions and quality of life in Cambridgeport.

Galluccio said the city must provide transportation to elderly tenants who cannot walk to the nearest supermarket. But Councillor Katherine Triantafillou said that access, though inconvenient, does exist for Cambridge residents. "Every individual in Cambridge is within two miles of a supermarket," she said.

In a new development, Schlesinger's report noted that the city might use its right of eminent domain to appropriate land and then hire a developer to build a market on that site.